Shelter and WASH Specialist, LEARN Consortium

Position: Shelter and WASH Specialist, LEARN Consortium

Country Programme: Syria

Base: East of North East Syria (NES), with frequent travels across NES

Starting date: spring 2022

Type of job: full time and paid

Duration of contract: 6 months with possible extension

Line Manager: LEARN Consortium Deputy Chief of Party (DCOP) (administrative management provided by the People in Need (PIN) Area Director for NES)

About PIN

PIN delivers assistance in NES addressing the needs of IDPs and hosting communities in several sectors such as food security, livelihoods, shelter, protection, education and WASH. PIN is a well-established organization in NES with several field offices, direct implementation and more than 400 employees. The main office is in Erbil and provides support services to field teams inside Syria. PIN’s contribution to the Syria humanitarian response is amongst the largest, with an annual turnover of over $35 million across Syria and funding from humanitarian donors including ECHO, BHA, ENI, SDC.

PIN’s key programming sectors in NES include a combination of early recovery and immediate humanitarian response programs in order to:

• Improve water service delivery and ensuring equitable access to Water and Hygiene services, in urban and rural areas;
• Improve food security;
• Improve access to shelter;
• Support recovery through the rehabilitation of public institutional buildings.
• Improve economic recovery and livelihoods recovery;
• Improve children’s psychosocial wellbeing.

General Position summary:

PIN is looking for Shelter and WASH Specialist for the LEARN Consortium (Linking Emergency Assistance and Response in Northeast Syria). The LEARN Consortium is a consortium of four partners led by Solidarites International (SI), aiming to provide affected population with WASH, shelter, health, livelihoods and protection assistance in NES. With the supervision from the DCOP, the Shelter and WASH Specialist will have a key role in ensuring quality and coherence within both sectors. The position will work with the Consortium partners’ field teams and provide technical support to partners through developing guidance, supporting implementation and coordination. The position will be hosted with the Consortium Management Unit (CMU) alongside other LEARN technical specialists.

Duties and responsibilities:

Coordination

• Facilitate cross-partner Shelter and WASH coordination meetings;
• Support strong communication between the Consortium partners, including sector lead agencies;
• Coordinate with other CMU sector specialists to deliver integrated LEARN program (particularly Health, Protection and Early Recovery and Markets Strengthening (ERMS));
• Review the short and mid-term plans for delivery of project activities, including on referral pathways (particularly related to non-food items (NFIs)) with other sectors of LEARN;
• Ensure that partners receive an overreaching snapshot of achievements across the Consortium through regular reports and presentations, including on trends, challenges, opportunities and recommendations;
• Maintain up-to-date understanding of NES context and impact of programming to provide timely insights about Shelter and WASH needs and trends in NES and advise CMU and partners.

Provision of Technical Expertise/ Compliance and Risk Management

• Lead/contribute to development/revision of LEARN guidelines, standard operating procedures (SOPs) for shelter, NFI and WASH across the Consortium partners;
• Support partners in the identification, tracking and implementation of the recommendations from monitoring and evaluation (M&E);
• Ensure protection, accountability and gender are mainstreamed throughout the shelter and WASH activities;
• Provide technical support to MEAL, including technical activity monitoring feedback to/from CMU MEAL team (e.g., third-party monitoring), and any technical perspective needed for data collection;
• Work constructively with partners’ program and support teams (where appropriate) to ensure sound administrative practices with regards to record keeping, compliance with donor regulations, communications, etc.;
• Review monthly budget forecasts and activity progress to support and propose actions in advance;
• Conduct monitoring and evaluation of program performance and propose adjustments, acceleration, and improvement of program delivery;
• Work with partners to incorporate sustainability requirements and exit planning (particularly WASH);
• Provide routine guidance to partners on Shelter, NFI and WASH activities that may raise BHA compliance issues;
• Work with partners on the technical design for new proposal; coordinate partners’ inputs.

Institutional Strengthening/ Communications

• Support the LEARN Shelter and WASH learning agenda (identification of good practices, pilot initiatives); support the technical lessons learning processes with MEAL Specialist and DCOP, identify contributions and potential for multi-sectoral integration, internal and external referral pathways and create related documents;
• Identify with sector lead agencies elements of institutional learning which could benefit the wider humanitarian community in NES;
• Contribute to communications products as needed.

Donor Relations

• Conduct technical review of donor reports and submissions, including in collaboration with other LEARN technical specialists as appropriate;
• Consolidate, process and analyse monthly and annual reports from partners;
• With the support of DCOP/sector lead agencies, lead regular calls with BHA technical advisors.

Representation/ External Coordination

• Develop and maintain relationship with Shelter and NFI (S/NFI) and WASH NES Working Groups, NGOs and other stakeholders; external coordination and representation at meetings or forums concerning Shelter and WASH activities;
• Work with the Consortium partners to share information on WASH and Shelter/NFI and implementation lessons learned with the wider humanitarian community in NES;
• Work with NES humanitarian actors (where appropriate) to identify where WASH and Shelter can collaborate/integrate/support other programming.
• Induct new LEARN partner staff on LEARN.

Suitable candidates for this position should possess:

• At least 7 years of professional experience within a humanitarian and/or development organization, of which at least 5 years in a senior role;
• Degree and experience in WASH- related topics, Architectural Design, Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering or similar preferred;
• Experience in construction;
• Proven experience in both Shelter and WASH programming;
• Familiarity with Shelter and WASH technical guidelines of institutional donors (experience with BHA is an advantage) and regional shelter/WASH working group guidelines;
• Excellent communication skills, including fluent spoken and written English; working knowledge of Arabic is an advantage;
• Strong grasp of all stages of program cycle management and quality standards in humanitarian programming, including safeguarding and accountability mechanisms;
• Strong organizational, critical analysis and problem-solving skills;
• Experience of working in complex and volatile contexts, including familiarity with the humanitarian context of Syria or the Middle East, would be an advantage.

Living Conditions / Environmental Conditions:

This position is an unaccompanied position. The position is based in the east of NES and share his/her time between the main guesthouse and the field guesthouses to allow closer proximity to the sites of project implementation. In the main base, living conditions are comfortable with some opportunities and places to socialize. In the operational bases, living conditions are more basic with less opportunities and places to socialize. Security inside NES is volatile and justifies specific arrangements for accommodation and movements in the areas of intervention. Adherence to strict security procedures is necessary, while the security levels can vary according to the different geographical locations and the changes of context.

Team members are expected to conduct themselves in a professional manner and respect local laws, customs and PIN’s and SI’s policies, procedures, and values at all times and in all in-country venues.

PIN Offers:

• Salary as per PIN salary scale (subsistence allowance of 1 200 EUR is already included): 3 300 EUR.
• Accommodation in PIN’s guesthouse on LEARN’s expenses
• 25 days of paid leave annually (two days of paid annual leave for every calendar month);
• Reimbursement of travel expenses with travel to the country of residence (or other selected country) once per every 6 months of completed work;
• Regional flights twice per year. The international staff has PIN’s support in leaving the base after every 3 months.
• Reimbursement of the costs of visas and vaccinations; assistance with visa application procedure;
• Free 24/7 medical helpdesk and psychological consultation available online;
• Reimbursement of the medical check-up before and after the deployment;
• Travel health insurance;
• Hostile Environment Awareness Training (HEAT)
• E-learning platform, frequent webinars and other opportunities for your capacity building
• In addition, a team of dedicated colleagues fosters a friendly and fair work atmosphere.

How to apply:

Are you interested in this position? Send us your CV and short cover letter in English (no longer than 4 pages altogether) via our application form. Please note only the shortlisted candidates will be contacted.

People in Need staff are expected to perform job duties and responsibilities in accordance with People in Need Code of Conduct and key policies (available at: www.peopleinneed.cz/policies).